Multicellular organisms including mammals are made up of tissues which are organized aggregates of specialized groups of cells. When tissues become damaged, for example, from an injury, or a surgical procedure, physiological events take place to close and repair the damaged site (e.g., an open wound, a surgical incision, etc.), and allow successful repair and regeneration of the tissue. These physiological events include an inflammatory response in which neutrophils, eosinophils, macrophages, lymphocytes, fibrocytes, and other cells involved in the inflammatory response migrate to the damage site to promote blood clotting and remove bacteria, debris and damaged tissue. Later, circulating cells migrate to the wound site and differentiate into myofibroblasts. The differentiated cells begin to deposit new extracellular matrix, which includes a complex assemblage of proteins, carbohydrates, and collagen, that provide support and anchor for the cells. Depending on the method used to close and repair the wound, excessive connective tissue and collagen can be deposited on the damage site. This can cause fibrosis on the damage site leading to scars, which can be particularly undesirable in topical or cosmetic surgical procedures.
Sutures are often used to ligate or close an open wound resulting from, for example, an injury or an incision formed during a surgical procedure. However, state of the art conventional sutures, such as, for example, silk, linen, nylon, polypropylene, polyamide, polyester, cat gut, polyglycolic acid, polylactic acid, polydioxanone, poliglecaprone (MONOCRYL), polyglactin (VICRYL), and caprolactone sutures are often inflexible thus inducing mechanical stress on the surrounding tissues and causing inflammation, scarring, and tissue necrosis at the ligation site.
There remains a need for new sutures that provide lower inflammation, reduced scarring, less likelihood of infection, and reduced cell death in a target tissue.